The House of Representatives recently took a step back in its commitment to offering real health-care reforms when it passed the well-intentioned, but critically misguided Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act. The legislation, which provides health insurance for children from low-income families under the State Children's Health Insurance Program, also severely cuts medical benefits for seniors.

As a health-care provider in a hospital setting, I have seen firsthand the benefits of SCHIP. Pennsylvania's SCHIP program provides comprehensive medical care to low-income children including immunizations, routine check-ups, prescription drugs, dental care, mental-health benefits, up to 90 days of hospitalization a year, medical equipment, rehabilitation therapies and home health care.

I support an aggressive effort to enroll the children who are eligible to receive benefits. There are thousands of children who qualify to receive benefits but are not enrolled in the SCHIP program because their families do not know they are eligible.

Congress had been working in a bipartisan manner to reauthorize the SCHIP program. Many options were presented to ensure children currently in the program retain their insurance and to enroll eligible children without health insurance. Unfortunately, it was CHAMP that was ultimately brought to the House floor for a vote.

Under the CHAMP bill, Medicare Advantage programs were cut by $157 billion. These plans provide health-care benefits such as disease management programs and preventive care that monitor the overall well-being of seniors. Disease management works closely with patients with diagnoses like heart disease and diabetes. It has been a proven way to reduce hospital days and coordinate the complex care needs of patients with chronic illness.

With these cuts, many seniors on a fixed income in southwestern Pennsylvania could see their out-of-pocket health-care expenses increase by $660 per year, nearly doubling what they currently pay. More than 67,200 seniors in my district alone will have their Medicare benefits cut.

The CHAMP bill also contains these additional harmful cuts over 10 years to our nation's seniors, including:

$14.4 billion to Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) for skilled nursing facilities (nursing homes, $6.5 billion), rehabilitation facilities ($6.6 billion) and long-term-care hospitals ($1.3 billion).

$7.4 billion to Medicare Part B (medical insurance) for seniors (including payments for oxygen).

$7.2 billion to home health payments.

$1.2 billion to medical imaging for same-day, contiguous body part exams.

Forcing patients in Medicare to assume ownership of stationary oxygen equipment after 18 months of use, rather than the 36 months of use under current law. Medical oxygen is a highly regulated prescription drug, and providing home oxygen therapy requires numerous services and costs above and beyond the cost of the equipment.

Further, under the current bill, beginning in 2011, every American who owns health insurance, including every senior in Medicare, would get a tax increase to raise billions of dollars by charging federal premium taxes on all insurance policies to fund a comparative effectiveness research trust fund that will duplicate many of the clinical reviews of prescription drugs, devices and medical treatments at the Food and Drug Administration.

Not only does this legislation hurt seniors, but it creates loopholes allowing people to qualify for coverage for which the SCHIP program was never intended. The bill extends benefits to people up to the age of 21, who are certainly no longer children.

In addition, it allows states to determine eligibility requirements and removes the five-year wait for SCHIP enrollment, which could allow non-citizens to immediately qualify for the program. It would also allow families of four making more than $100,000 to qualify for the program. It is not fair to cut benefits for fixed-income seniors so that people who can afford health care can receive a government subsidy.

Congress must focus on real health-care reform. Reducing medication errors, eliminating infections and other patient safety measures would save hundreds of billions of dollars each year, enough to fund SCHIP without having seniors lose their benefits.